Fricsay has begun to receive something of his
due as a recording artist of late. Still, little that has been
released can match up to the catholicity of the repertoire here
or can match it in bulk or autobiographical resonance. Fricsay
was one of the architects of post-War German musical renovation.
He’d conducted in his native Hungary since 1933 when, at the early
age of nineteen, he’d been given charge of the Philharmonic Orchestra
of Szeged. By the war’s end he’d made his way to the Budapest
State Opera and Philharmonic and in 1948 was appointed music director
of West Berlin’s State Opera and conductor of RIAS – with a more
than attractive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The
earliest recording here dates from the year after his 1948 appointment
and the latest from two years before his regrettably early death
from cancer at the age of forty-eight in 1963.

His Beethoven First Symphony is generally lithe
and classical but occasionally inclining too much to a degree
of rigidity – the slow movement in particular sounds somewhat
rushed. Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by contrast can
sound a little too relaxed. There are also some glassy sounding
violins in the overture that don’t seem to have transferred well
and some residual tape hiss - even though the wind playing, qua
playing, is first class. I was disappointed by the rather sleepy
Scherzo but enjoyed Rita Streich’s gallantly rolled r and her
airy delivery in the Song with Chorus – contralto Diana Eustrati
doesn’t balance so well with her soprano partner, though internally
the chorus is exceptionally well balanced. The first disc is rounded
out with Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. Here the violins are
infectious and incisive, the Larghetto is witty and the Gavotte
frolicsome and fast.

The second disc is given over to Mahler and Tchaikovsky.
Maureen Forrester’s famous recording of Das Lied von der Erde
with Richard Lewis and Fritz Reiner in Chicago has slightly effaced
this Rückert lieder performance. But this is a beautifully
felt traversal, Forrester floating and moulding Ich bin der
Welt abhanden gekommen with simplicity and feeling, her contralto
lightening, lifting or darkening. Or again her conversational
ease, fluency and intimacy in Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder.
Fricsay accompanies with great finesse even though he was
never known particularly as a Mahlerian. Coupled with it is the
Pathetique. This isn’t the famous Berlin 1953 recording, that
blazing mono, which has remained a testament to Fricsay’s incandescent
sense of visceral drama. This is the later September 1959 traversal,
one that Fricsay wasn’t happy with, and parts of which he wanted
to retake. It’s in stereo of course but has only made one previous
incarnation on CD and that was in Japan. The differences between
those two recordings, made only six years apart, demonstrate the
futility of writ in stone perceptions of interpretations. The
1959 performance is eight minutes slower than the earlier one
and it’s far more symphonically considered an approach, with greater
clarity, less overt and galvanizing, but more cohesive.

Disc Three has the Rossini-Respighi confection
sporting a notably well played Overture and some sparkling brass
playing in the Cancan. Overall though there’s not quite the sense
of intimacy and atmosphere that Ansermet generated from this score.
Similarly, whilst there are many beautiful touches Scheherazade
rather hangs fire. It’s not helped by a rather insistently slow
opening movement that tends to douse dramatic impulse - though
later on Fricsay’s lyrical unfolding is laudable. It’s only right
that a whole disc should be devoted to the Strauss family, as
Fricsay was so noble an interpreter of the Viennese Waltz. There
are marvellously evocative moments here and who could resist the
succulent violins in Wiener Blut or the lissom delineation of
the Perpetuum mobile, still less the gloriously shaped diminuendi
in the Frülingsstimmen Waltz.

Fricsay worked for
some time with pianist Margrit Weber, the Swiss pianist who was
the dedicatee of Stravinsky’s Movements (she recorded it with
Fricsay) and Martinů’s Fantasia Concertante. Falla’s
Gardens are not in the de Larrocha class – not as succulently
colourful but instead they have a precise and clear presence and
are stronger on crisp articulation than atmosphere. Françaix’s
Concertino receives a fresh reading, with fine trombone work in
the opening movement and if there’s not the last ounce of brittle
drive there’s plenty of finesse. The Honegger Concertino, another
brief work, is notable for its elliptical, glinting, hinting Larghetto
sostenuto and the way in which Weber and Fricsay explore the veiled
unease that lies at the heart of the concluding Allegro with its
mocking brass and brittle patina. The Variations Symphoniques
go well; quite a natural perspective between soloist and orchestra
and a reliable rather than inspired performance. The disc ends
with the Paganini Variations. I’ve not heard the LP but was the
percussion section really as up front as this? It sounds like
the 1812. Apart from this balance aberration Weber has a strongly
etched profile, Fricsay brings out the wind with unselfconscious
delicacy – and my main impression is that Weber scores highly
on drive, somewhat less so in repose.

The next disc is notable for bringing together
some important music. It was due to Klemperer’s indisposition
that his substitute, Fricsay, gave a performance of Dantons Tod
at the Salzburg Festival of 1947. This was to be his break and
led to prestigious European-wide engagements. A couple of years
after that stand-in performance he was asked to record the Interlude
and he carves a witty way with it, the principal clarinet revealing
a sure instinct for the apex of a phrase. The Hindemith Symphonic
Dances are brilliantly well organized by Fricsay from the bracing
first, consummately explored, to the chugging rhythms of the third,
colourful, evolutionary and vibrant. The fourth is powerful with
magnificently calibrated climaxes and a strong and noble seriousness.
Martin’s Petite Suite Concertante is complexly alive in Fricsay’s
reading, both powerfully visceral and also impressionistically
withdrawn. Then there is Hartmann’s Sixth Symphony with its powerful
sonorities and sense of unfolding cataclysm, the bassoon, muted
brass and swirling surly strings in the first movement Adagio
a combustible descendent of Berg. And yet when the strings, newly
seared, and the onrushing trumpets drive out into phantasmagoria
and collapse Fricsay evokes the tenderness of the music’s sudden
haunted elegance and almost recriminatory beauty with a sure understanding
of what’s at stake. The frantic Toccata, with its troublesome
and querulous fugato, is sharply turned and the piano and percussion
interjections are well judged.

Discs seven and eight are given over to Haydn’s
Seasons. Whilst he was of course known for his sensitive direction
of classical liturgical works – mainly Mozart and Haydn – and
despite the encomiums this recording from 1961 has sometimes received
I’m not convinced. Whilst the recitatives are swift and intelligently
shaped there is a sense of sleepy monumentality about much of
the phrasing and something of a sense that Fricsay sees this as
Haydn-as-Bach. The chorus is good, the soloists not outstanding
and some cuts are made. What seems to me most damaging is a sense
of fluctuation throughout, a lack of a dramatic unity – as well
as some rather rhetorical moments not really in keeping with a
work of this kind. The final volume is a delightful autobiographical
reminiscence narrated by Fricsay. It’s in German and interspersed
with excerpts from his commercial recordings. There’s a printed
summary of the text in English and French in the booklet.

This is a revealing set – revealing of Fricsay’s
tastes and preferences as well as his interest in the contemporary
music of the day. However uneven some of the performances they
are never less than thought provoking; many have been unobtainable
for years. At its competitive price this latest Original Masters
box is a highly desirable acquisition.

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